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Thursday, November 15, 2007

New-found treasures

Last week, my sister called me to say she'd volunteered me for a "quick job". As she started to go into detail, I began my usual grumbling about how busy I am, blah blah blah, but then one word stopped me cold.

Books.

The local library was having its annual book sale, and they needed people to take the left-overs from the library to the swimming pool lobby where they'd be free for the taking. That's right, you heard me. FREE BOOKS!!

I know, I know. I started salivating, too.

My first instinct was to bypass the swimming pool lobby all together and drive straight home where I would simply unload them from the back of my truck, alphabetize them, and add them to my shelves. Ooooooh, temptation is a nasty thing, I tell ya. But my mother didn't raise me with an overactive conscience, so I turned my truck into the pool parking lot like a good girl.

We unloaded the boxes, helped sort them out into their specific category, (children's books, biographies, cookbooks, etc), and then spent the next little while going through them again, one by one, until I'd selected a handful that needed to come home with me.

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx - I have neither read it, nor seen the movie, but I'm quite looking forward to it. I mean, really, what's not to love about Newfoundland?

Dracula by Bram Stoker - don't know when I'll be able to bring myself to read this one, but I had to have it just in case I ever worked up the courage.

Selected Poems of Robert Burns - "O my Luve's like a red, red rose. . ." And not only is it a lovely little book of his poetry, but someone had pressed leaves inside before donating the book to the library. I love finding unexpected treasures inside a treasure.

Great Adventures with National Geographice - a giant hardcover book from 1963 - don't you LOVE National Geographic? One of the teachers at our school has shelves and shelves of them. . .sigh. . .

There were many, many others I wanted to take, but that annoying old conscience made me stop at 4. It's been a week, though. In my opinion, that's plenty of time for everyone else to have had their chance to get in there and high-graze through the stacks. Anything still there is fair game, right?

I've heard of The Shipping News but never read it. I LOVE LOVE LOVE library book sales! There's a church that has 10,000 books for a book sale, once a year, and I found out about it last year and racked up. On Bag Day you can fill a supermarket paperbag that they provide to the top for $4 I think it is. Anyway this year I found out about it a week or so before it happened, and then FORGOT ABOUT IT and MISSED IT! I know, dumb ass move! LOL Anyway, I love sales like those. They're so much fun.

Too bad about missing that book sale, Rachael - what a bummer! I'm going to put The Shipping News on the top of my TBR pile, but right now I'm almost 1/2 way thru "Rhett Butler's People" and frankly, finding it a little difficult to keep up with who's who and what's what. I have a short attention span and the story tends to flip around a bit. One thing that's thrown me is that Scarlett has a baby (Wade) with her first husband. It's been a long time since I read GWTW, so I may have simply forgotten about it, but I'm pretty sure there's no baby in the movie until she and Rhett have Bonnie. Anyway, it threw me for a complete loop when I read that. Had to back track and re-read to make sure I hadn't mis-read it. LOL

Oh wow your topic is a gold mine for me! I love to read and I go to a lot of bookstores, used bookstores and library booksales. Our library just had their booksale a couple of weeks ago. I hit the jackpot there!

I got books by Jill Shalvis, Jennifer Estep, Jennifer Crusie, Michelle Bardsley, etc. etc. I had two bags full! It was all the books you could put in a brown paper grocery bag for $2.00! There were so many good ones! If I had the room I probably would have bought more but, alas, I only have a small bookcase to put it all in. My bookcase is overflowing to say the least! There are so many excellent authors with so many fantastic stories. I read all the time, every single day, ever since I have been a little kid.